A Different Kind of Life
by Gumby0677
Summary: AU Nathan and Carol not only had Robert, but a daughter as well. Meet Nicole Bridger and how her whole life changed the day Admiral Noyce came onto her father’s island to get him to Captain the Seaquest.
1. Default Chapter

Ratings: pg-13

Disclaimer- I do not own seaQuest DSV or 2032, if I did they would not have been cancelled when they did and had gone on for at least 3 more seasons.

Summary- AU Nathan and Carol not only had Robert, but a daughter as well. Meet Nicole Bridger and how her whole life changed the day Admiral Noyce came onto her father's island to get him to Captain the Seaquest.

Chapter 1

Bridger's Island

It was a nice summer day on the island. It was early afternoon and not too hot. Nicole Bridger was looking out the door of her father's house. Her eyes followed her father, Nathan Bridger, talking with Admiral Noyce out on the beach. I wonder what Noyce wants Nicole though as she continued her gaze out the door.

Some 10 minutes later her father made his way back to the house with Noyce at his heels. Nathan Bridger looked up and saw his 17-year-old daughter leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, with a curious look on her face. Whenever she made that look she reminded him so much of his wife, her mother- Carol Bridger.

"Nicole, It seems we are going to be going on a trip," Nathan said as soon as he reached the steps.

"A trip? Why, where?" Nicole questioned and looked to Admiral Noyce knowing that he was probably the reason.

"We are going to Hawaii to see the Seaquest." Nathan said as he crossed into the house. He turned to his daughter and added "Start packing, not too much, we won't be gone that long."

Nicole looked at Admiral Noyce and saw the look in his eye that meant it was not going to be a simple trip. Hmm, there got to be more that he is telling she thought.

"So, we are going to see the seaQuest. When do we leave? She asked telling her body towards her father.

"As soon as you two are ready." Noyce said. Nicole gave him a look that said I was not talking to you.

"Well, I got some packing to do then." Nicole said and then made her way to her room and left the two men to talk. She walked into her room and sat down. She looked around her room, the white walls with pale blue and pale green-sponged strikes she had painted two summers ago. The pictures of her family and of places she had seen. All of her knick-knacks on her shelves, all of her books- she loved books. That was why she ways able to skip two grades and add to the fact that she was home schooled with the best the computer online school systems could offer. She sighed, got up and went to the closet to grab a couple of duffle bags, her backpack and a sea bag. She also grabbed two boxes to add some personal items.

Nicole went about opening drawers, the closet, grabbing clothes and things that she would need for the trip. She packed some pants, long tops, short sleeve tops, a few shorts, and some personal garments into one of the duffle bags. The backpack bag she added books, some homework assignments she need to get done for the summer term, music, some of her personal computer programs- where she was going she was she there was a computer she could access. As well as some more personal touches like the bear her brother Robert gave her when she was three. She grabbed her older brother's sea bag and started throwing in her clothes even more pants, tops and other clothes she might not live without- depending on how long her father and her were gone and personal items into it. She was going into the bathroom to grab her toiletries when there was knock on her door. She turned and saw Noyce standing in the hallway.

"Just so you know, I'm hoping that your father is willing to come back and be the captain of the seaQuest." Noyce said.

"I kind of figured that when Dad said we where going to see the seaQuest." Nicole stated. She then proceeded to turn back around to go into her bathroom.

"I just wanted to let you know what was going on; oh you might want to pack some more things. You will be on board till the end of the tour. One of my men will bring the bag with him before you come on board so we don't tip Nathan off." Noyce said with a smile.

"Sure, no problem. I kind of figured that was what happening. The extra bag and box will be buy the computer- I'll put a note on the desk as to what is coming- my room is a mess. Do you think I can bring my computer too?" Nicole asked.

"I don't see that as a problem. Just give me the note before we leave. We need to be out of here in 30 minutes." Noyce said and left Nicole to finish packing.

"Looks like I'm going to gone for a while then." Nicole mumbled to herself and went into her bathroom to retrieve all that she needed. After she divided it up into too piles- stuff to make it look like she was going on a trip and other stuff she would need, she placed them in the correct bags and went around her room grabbed some personal pictures, a few more books, some movies to watch on her computer. She unplugged her computer and put all the components except for the monitor and tower in the box. She put sticky notes on what was to be taken and grabbed her duffle bag and backpack and went to find Noyce.

Pearl Harbor

The Next Day

"Wow" Nicole exclaimed as she finally got a glimpse of the seaQuest from the launch window.

She could hear her father saying something to Noyce about the show being over and then they were out of there, but she was too busy soaking in her surrounding. This sub was what her father had poured his heart and soul into designing all those years.

As soon as they got on board they were given a tour of the sub. Her favorite part was the moon pool when her father was sprayed by a dolphin that turned out to be Darwin. And the look on his face and her's too when they found out that Darwin could speak. It was priceless.

There they met Lucas Wolenczak who designed the system that allowed Darwin to speak. Nicole was impressed, they guy looked young to have designed that kind of technology. She later found out that he was a genius and on board the seaQuest because his father was on of the backers and some strings were pulled to allow Lucas to live on the sub.

Noyce and her father continued the tour with Nicole following behind then. She met Commander Ford and he did not too pleased to met then or that was the impression she was getting from him.

Then came the realization from her father that he had been set up to stay aboard the sub as the Captain. Shaking her head, Nicole followed a crew member to the quarters that would be her's until the tour was over.

When she walked into her room, as promised there were her bags and her computer. She signed and picked up one of the bags and took out the pictures that where on the top.

"Mom, Robert. I wish you guys were here to see this. The sub is incredible. I think Dad is really going to like it here, if he were to give it a chance." She said to the pictures. She stared at the photos wishing that her mother and brother were still alive.

A knock was heard on the hatch and her father entered her quarters.

"Nicole, I was.." then he stopped and noticed her bags and computer.

"Yeah, Noyce warned me what was up. He knew that his god-daughter would scream at him for not warning her so he let me pack some extra things." Nicole stated.

"Oh." Was her father's only response.

"Dad are you ok?" Nicole asked coming to stand by him.

"No, not really. This was not something I wanted to do..."Nathan started to say.

"What? Dad, come on you're the captain of the seaQuest. What more could you want? Nicole asked.

"There are a lot more things that I would rather have." He father said looking at the photos in her hand.

"Dad.." she began.

"Nicole, this is really something I don't want to get into right now." Nathan said. He took the pictures out of her hand and smiled at them.

"Your mother would have been proud to see this ship- not too happy about me being on board- but proud." Nathan told her. He gave her back the pictures and turned to leave the room.

"Nicole, try not to get in the way and get too comfortable here- we are not staying to long." Nathan said as he walked out of her room.

"Try not to get comfortable..." she muttered under her breather as she pulled out her music collection and flipped to find something to listen to as she sat on her bed. She would leave the unpacking for later- much later.

Sometime later Nicole decided to go on a little adventure called explore the seaQuest. She only knew where the docking bay and the moon pool were located and decided she wanted to go exploring.

She came out of the area where her quarters were and noticed they were by her father's quarters. Not ready to see him again she turned and walked into the other direction and walked down some stairs. As she climbed down the last one, she looked around trying to figure out where to go when she bumped into someone.

"Oh, I am so sorry..." she looked up trying to spot the rank on the uniform. Except there was no uniform only civilian clothing belonging to one Lucas Wolenczak. "You" she said.

"Me?!?" Lucas said back. "You bumped into me"

"Well you should be more careful" Nicole said.

"I should..." Lucas started.

Nicole just crossed her arms and stared at him. After 5 minutes, she gave up and turned away and started to walk away from him. She then stopped looked around, came back to where she left him and asked, "Where is the galley?"

Lucas just laughed, "Come on. I'll give you the tour Admiral Noyce didn't give you."

Nicole followed him around the ship. Lucas true to his word showed her the places the Noyce left out on the tour- the med bay, the science areas, the location of the bridge, and finally the galley.

"Thanks for the tour Lucas." Nicole said after she took a bite of her sandwich.

"No problem" Lucas said.

"So what's it like living on the seaQuest?" Nicole said.

"It's ok. I mean there are all kinds of adults around and your underwater the whole time. No one really to yell at you." Lucas said.

"Oh." Nicole said.

"So is your dad going to stay?" Lucas asked.

"I really have no idea. I want him to, the island was pretty boring except when I had school and then I was always on the computer doing my homework." Nicole said.

"Exactly how old are you?" Lucas asked.

"I just turned 17 a month ago" Nicole said. "How about you?"

"I'm 16. I wont turn 17 until December." Lucas said. "How about school wise- were are you?"

"I am in my second year of college. I am doing my undergrad work through UCLA online program. I am going to major in science and computers." Nicole said.

"I'm a genius and graduated high school when you were in 6th grade. Got my first college degree when you were in probably 9th grade and I am getting a Master's degree at Stanford online." Lucas said.

"Well you sure are full of yourself" Nicole said with a smile.

"I guess I am." Lucas said with a smile.

Lucas and Nicole were walking back to the science area when they spotted her father standing with a young man in uniform and a woman in a green colored uniform.

"That's Commander Ford and Doctor Westphalen." Lucas whispered to her as they got closer to the trio.

The Doctor had made a comment and was walking away when she noticed the two teenagers in front of her.

"Dr. Westphalen this is my daughter Nicole. Nicole this is the ships Doctor, Dr. Westphalen." Nathan said.

They nodded to each other and Dr. Westphalen continued on her way. Nathan and Commander Ford turned to go in another direction without even saying anything to the teenagers.

"Well that was something." Nicole said as she watched her father walk away.

"Huh?" Lucas asked her.

"A.. never mind. Talking to myself" Nicole said.

"Ok" Lucas shrugged.

"SO what else is there to do around here? Nicole said.

"Nothing much unless you have a job on the sub. I just hang out in my room or the moon pool until someone needs something." Lucas stated.

"You can help me put my computer back together." Nicole said "I have it in a box and I really need to check my mail."

"Sure, I've got nothing pressing to do at the moment.

Nicole and Lucas made their way to her quarters and tried to put the monstrosity that she called her computer back together. Nicole was flipping through disks and books as she waited patiently for Lucas to boot up her computer. She noticed that he was doing something to it when it loaded up.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Cleaning out your unwanted files and trying to give you more memory. Also adding in a new file wall program that I designed so that you can't hack into the seaQuest files or no one else can hack into your files then into the seaQuest." Lucas stated.

"Ok.." she shrugged. Who was she to question the "genius"?

By the time Lucas had completed his mini upgrade on he computer, Nicole had ended up unpacking all of her stuff and was busy organizing her books onto a shelf.

There was a knock on her door. Nicole went to answer it and there she found her father and Dr. Westphalen with a serious look on both of their faces.

"We need Lucas" Dr. Westphalen said.

TBC....


	2. Chapter 2

Ratings: pg-13

Disclaimer- I do not own seaQuest DSV or 2032, if I did they would not have been cancelled when they did and had gone on for at least 3 more seasons.

Summary- AU Nathan and Carol not only had Robert, but a daughter as well. Meet Nicole Bridger and how her whole life changed the day Admiral Noyce came onto her father's island to get him to Captain the Seaquest.

Chapter 2

Nicole stared at her father and Dr. Westphalen for a second and then let them in. The duo looked at Lucas, Lucas looked back at them about to protest that he did nothing.

"There is something wrong with Seaquest and we need you to dig around and find out what's going on" her father said to Lucas.

Lucas sighed and got up from the seat he was in. "Well first off, we need to go to my quarters cause Nicole's computer doesn't have access to the stuff I need" he said as he made his way to the hatch.

Dr. Westphalen and Bridger nodded their heads and followed Lucas out of Nicole's quarters. Nicole was left in her room confused and then realized they left without her. "Hey…wait for me" she called after them.

- - - - - - - - --

Lucas looked up from his computer screen after typing in a series of commands. "It's dying." He said turning to Captain Bridger.

"What's dying?" Nicole's father asked. Nicole herself was confused as to what was going on. All she knew was that while she and Lucas were in her room fixing her computer, the Seaquest had been attacked by a rogue sub and had problems with weapons, targeting and the navigation systems.

"The core of the main computer has a virus. That's what's been gnawing away at the systems." Lucas explained as he turned back to his screen.

"But if it's in the core, why isn't it affecting the whole ship?" Dr. Westphalen asked from her spot on Lucas's bed.

"Oh, it will. It just started with weapons and propulsion." Lucas replied back after checking his screen again.

Then Dr. Westphalen and Nicole's father began to discuss how the virus could have been missed in routine diagnostics. Lucas then spoke up saying that it was buried to deep into the system to be noticed and it looked like it had been there for a while, but he didn't know how long.

"I can peel back the layers and pin point the exact time frame.." Lucas started to say and then froze. "It's got dogs… watch dogs, back doors to stop people from getting in" he exclaimed.

"What do we do now" Nicole asked. She had been quiet the whole time listening to the trio express their worries.

"We figure out a way to stop it and get rid of it" Her father said to her. He turned to Lucas and was about to speak when O'Neill's voice came over the loud speakers "Captain to the bridge. Captain to the bridge."

"I think that's you." Lucas said with a smile to Bridger. Nicole rolled her eyes at the comment.

Nathan got up and clapped his hand on Lucas's shoulder "Just keep doing what you're doing." He said as he rose from his seat and went to the hatch. As he got to the hatch "Good work" he said and then left.

Dr. Westphalen stood up herself and turend to Lucas "Don't get cocky." And left as well. Nicole and Lucas just looked at each other with confused and amused expressions.

"So now what" Nicole asked. Lucas studied her for a minute and then looked around his room "We figure out the problem" He looked at his screen and then thought for a moment. As he was thinking Nicole looked around his room and noticed all the clutter. "Ever clean your room?" she asked with disgust.

"No time" he said as he began to type in some commands and focused his attention on the computer. Nicole sighed and grabbed one of the UEO manuals he had on his book shelf and began to read.

- - - - - - - -

An hour later found the two teenagers with small computers and wires in a corridor near the launch bay. Nicole sensed her father coming near them and smiled at him. She also noticed that he had changed into the UEO uniform that was left in his quarters.

"Nice duds" she commented and then handed Lucas the black wire he requested.

"How's it going" he asked the two of them.

"Slow" Nicole responed and Lucas nodded his head in agreement.

"Well anything" her father asked.

"We are still trying to get to the virus, but we did find one thing. When it was planted into the computers" he replied.

"And" her father prompted"

"Judging by the layers of data between us and him, I'd say it was planted a little over a year ago. Thirteen months to be exact." He stated.

Bridger looked at the two of them and nodded his head. "Keep at it." And walked away.

Nicole stared at her fathers retreating form and frowned for a moment. Lucas noticed that she was not paying attention. "Bridger. Nicole. Nikki" he said trying to get her attention.

"I think he knows who did this" was all she said.

- - - - - - - -

Nicole and Lucas sat in on the meeting in the ward room since they were now a part of the "How do we fix the Seaquest" mystery.

"It's Marilyn Stark. I went back through the service records and found that she served on the Seaquest and when it was in dry dock, she was the commanding officer in charge."

Nicole sat there and listened as Ford explained what happened while he served under Stark. Then her dad explained how he taught Stark most of what she knows. Then there was the argument with Dr. Westphalen about weapons.

Nicole took that as the signal to get out of there. She grabbed Lucas by his collar and dragged him out of the meeting. The two of them stood in the corridor and looked at each other.

"Oh Boy" Nicole said "I know" Lucas said. Then everyone came out of the room and Dr. Westphalen motioned for the two of them to follow her.

"Wonder what we get to do now" Lucas said as they trailed after her like ducklings.

- - - - - - - - -

Since the Seaquest was dealing with a problem the two teens were now stuck in one of the science labs off the moon pool. Nicole was bored out of her mind and wanted to be anywhere other than the science lab.

She then caught movement in the doorway and noticed her father and Commander Ford come in. Lucas nudged her. "I wonder what's going on now?" he asked.

"Well, let's go find out." Nicole said. Nicole and Lucas walked closer

and saw Dr. Westphalen and Bridger talking to Darwin. They got close enough to hear Darwin exclaim "Need air".

"What's going on?" Nicole asked as she is Lucas came up to the moon pool.

"Your father has the idea of using Darwin to help with the weapons. He wants to fire him out of the torpedo tube." Dr. Westphalen explained.

"What" both teens cried and turned to Bridger. "No, he's going to SWIM out of the torpedo tube and place this beacon on the rogue sub."

"Need air" Darwin once again exclaimed.

"You will get it with this device" Bridger explained and put the special made dolphin scuba gear on Darwin. "Try it out" he said.

"I still don't like it." Dr. Westphalen stated as Darwin went underwater. Nicole and Lucas just stood there watching what was going on.

"Darwin breathe." Darwin said when he surfaced again.

"Good. Now, what you do is swim out and tag the marker." Bridger said as he petted Darwin.

"Darwin play." Darwin stated again.

"He's got a one track mind" Lucas muttered.

Bridger ignored Lucas's comment and continued to speak to Darwin. "Just like on the island. You swim down, you tag the marker, tag the metal boat. Understand?"

"Metal boat." Darwin replied.

"Darwin, you don't have to do this." Dr. Westphalen said to Darwin.

But Darwin just shook his head and headed underwater. The three of them stepped away from the moon pool and Nicole's father spoke in his PAL about something.

After finishing he looked at Nicole and Lucas. "Ok, now we get back to finding the virus and eliminating it." Lucas nodded his head while Nicole looked at the moon pool. "Nicole, Darwin will be fine" he father said.

"He better be." Nicole muttered and followed Lucas out of the science labs.

While Her father and the command crew were dealing with the rogue sub, Lucas, Nicole and several computer techs were going over the computer systems trying to get rid of the virus. Lucas had finally found where the program and originally been uploaded into. With Nicole's help (basically she read the read outs and handed tools or typed in commands that Lucas needed) they were able to get weapons, targeting, navigation and communications back up and running, but after the torpedo hit the sub. Another hour later, they had full control of the virus and Lucas made some patch jobs so that no one else could hack into the systems without authorization from several people.

Nicole and her father were sitting in his room just talking about things and feeding pictures into the hologram projector when Lucas poked his head in the door.

"It was open" he said blushing as he stepped in.

"Come in" her father said.

Lucas came in and paused at hologram. "I'm still trying to improve it." He said motioning to the equipment. He turned his attention to the picture of who he assumed was Nicole's mom, a younger Nicole and a teenage boy."

"She's pretty" he commented.

"She's my mom" Nicole said with a smile. Lucas smiled at her and turned his attention to her father.

"Well, I just came by to tell you I thought it was very … effective the way you handled the situation." Lucas stammered. Nicole raise her eyebrow at Lucas's choice of words.

"Effective? Thanks." Bridger said a bit confused.

"So… you gonna stay, or what?" Lucas asked sitting on the bunk near Bridger. Nicole herself turned to look at her father. She too wanted to know, but was too afraid to voice the question.

"It's not that simple." Her father said.

" Why not? Come on, you like it here, don't you? I mean, it is your boat." Lucas began to argue.

"I made a promise to my wife." Bridger began.

Lucas, Nicole and her father sat in silence looking at the picture on the hologram. Finally Lucas broke the silence. "Were you two happy?" he asked quietly.

"Yes we were, we had two great kids" Bridger said and hugged Nicole who was sitting to his left side.

"You got lucky. My parents were never happy. They couldn't even stand to be in the same room as each other." Lucas began " Sometimes I wished that they would just get divorced." He added.

"Why didn't they?" Nicole asked quietly.

"Well, they said that when they got married, that they made a promise to stay together forever. I guess they didn't count on things changing. " Lucas said. Then things were quiet for a moment until O'Neill's voice was heard over the loud speaker once again "Captain, you're wanted on the bridge."

"I think that's me." Bridger said and patted Nicole and Lucas on the foot and stood up to turn off the hologram. Lucas and Nicole stood up and followed her father out of his quarters. Bridger walked down the hall with the two teens watching him.

"So do you think he's going to stay" Lucas asked Nicole.

"Yeah, he just made up his mind" Nicole said with a smile.

TBC…..


	3. Chapter 3

Ratings: pg-13

Disclaimer- I do not own seaQuest DSV or 2032, if I did they would not have been cancelled when they did and had gone on for at least 3 more seasons.

Summary- AU Nathan and Carol not only had Robert, but a daughter as well. Meet Nicole Bridger and how her whole life changed the day Admiral Noyce came onto her father's island to get him to Captain the Seaquest.

Chapter 3

It had been a weird three weeks of getting used to living on the Seaquest. Nicole had started classes again, but with the help of Lucas she was able to submit her homework and papers and have her online discussions without anyone pin pointing the location of the Seaquest. Dr. Westphalen was appointed her advisor and by staying on the Seaquest she was able to gain college credit. That was mostly due to her godfather Admiral Noyce pulling some string at UCLA. Noyce promised her that he and Dr. Westphalen would sign off on all the paper work at the end of each semester because some of the stuff that the science department would be doing would be classified to the public.

Nicole was sitting at her computer having just finished an online discussion with her English class on the analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald's works. She rubbed her eyes and opened a new window in her word document to start writing out the five page paper that would be due in a week.

She typed in her name and class number. She saved the document so that she could type at any time and decided to take a break and check out her email. She really wasn't all that thrilled at writing an English paper. Heck she would rather write a paper on the geological changes in the ocean sea floor than on an English author.

She pulled up her email account and found that she had several messages. She opened the ones that looked interesting and began to read. One of them was an invite from her high school friend Abby, asking her to come and visit her. Abby had moved to New York and was studying broadcasting at one of the universities. Nicole sadly wrote back that she would be out of the country for the next several months, maybe some other time but they always had email to keep each other up to date. She sent the email and then pulled up the other messages.

One message was a noticed to all UCLA students about a lecture/conference that was going to be held in San Diego in three weeks. The main topics were to deal with science and the ever-changing world that they lived in. Nicole thought that it looked interesting and printed up the information to show her dad_. Maybe I can get him to let me go_ she thought. She grabbed the paper and went off in search of her dad.

Of course finding her dad really wasn't that hard. After all he was the Captain of the sub she was currently staying on. She went to his room but as she was walking that way she noticed Lucas standing outside the door.

"Is he in there" Nicole asked as she came closer to Lucas. Lucas looked up and noticed Nicole.

"No, and I just came form the science labs" he said with a frown. Nicole laughed. "Well that leaves only one place left to look." She grinned.

"The bridge" Lucas said. "Yup, lets go before he goes somewhere else." Nicole said.

The two teenagers made their way to the bridge and were happy to find it quiet and calm-meaning no general quarters alarm blaring or no clam doors shut. Nicole quickly made her way to her father who was sitting at his chair reading over some reports. Sensor Chief Miguel Ortiz looked up and waved his hand at them. Nicole waved back and stepped up to her father.

"Daddy" Nicole began. Nathan looked up and smiled. "Hey Sweety" he said to her. "What brings you here?" he asked.

"Daddy, I got an email from the science program at UCLA and it's an invitation to go to a conference in San Diego. Can I go?" Nicole asked. She handed over the email to her father and he began to look it over.

"See it's educational and I can get college credit for it." She stated. She brought her hand to her face and began to chew on her right hand's nails.

"I'll think about it" her father said. "Besides, you are already getting college credit for being here on the Seaquest." He added.

Nicole glared and took the paper. "Yeah, but did I have a choice as to staying here" she retorted and left the bridge and a stunned father and Lucas behind.

"I thought she was happy" Lucas said.

- - - - - - -

After Nicole stomped off the bridge, she made her way to the moon pool and sat on one of the metal bridges overhanging the pool. She found this place as a great place to sit and think about her problems. She sighed and looked over the email in her hand and crumpled it up. _This isn't fair_ she thought_. I'm 17 years old, I should be able to decide if I can go or not._ _Lucas is so lucky he has no parent on board_.

Nicole sat there for a while swinging her legs back and forth. She heard the sound of foot steps and instantly thought her father. Nope instead it was Dr. Westphalen. "Nicole, is something wrong? You've been sitting her for a while now." She asked as she took a seat next to Nicole.

"My life" Nicole said staring at the water "Why can't I decide what I can and can't do?" she wondered out loud.

"Nicole, life isn't going to be fair" Dr. Westphalen stated. "Parents try to help their children as best they can."

"Yeah, but what if the child has no choice." Nicole mumbled.

"What do you mean no choice?" Dr. Westphalen asked.

"I mean ever since dad decided he was going to stay, he never really asked me if I wanted to stay. I thought… I don't know what I thought" she rambled.

Dr. Westphalen paused for a moment. "Nicole how old were you when you brother went missing?" she asked.

"10. We were in Pearl at the time. Dad was beginning the funding for the Seaquest." Nicole replied back.

"And when your mother passed?" Dr. Westphalen.

"I was 13, and I was away at boarding school." Nicole said sadly. "I didn't really live at home during high school. I spent more time figuring out ways NOT to go home."

Dr. Westphalen smiled at Nicole. "Your father is just trying to figure out how to care for you the best that he can."

"But it's no fair, Lucas gets to do what he wants. He has no adults telling him what to do" Nicole stated.

"Well, that's where you are wrong. Sure Dr. Wolenczak was able to get Lucas on board, but there were stipulations made for him to stay. First of all, Lucas needed guardians on the boat who could speak on his behalf if something went wrong. Authorize medical treatment and the such." Dr. Westphalen pointed out.

"Who are his guardians?" Nicole wondered.

"Your father and I are." Dr. Westphalen said with a smiled.

"Oh" Nicole said.

"So think about it, Lucas is in the same situation as you. Nathan has to authorize all the "fun things" as you would say." Dr. Westphalen said.

"So in a sense, I somehow gained another brother" Nicole said with amusement. "Does Lucas know this?"

"I suppose so" Dr. Westphalen said. "Well I need to be getting back to some things. You can help me if you want to." She added.

"I'll be there in a bit" Nicole promised.

- - - - - -

Nicole came up to the hatch of her father's quarters. She took a deep breath and knocked. She heard her father say to come in and pushed open the door. As she walked in she saw her father and Lucas going over some manuals.

"So I was thinking that if we added this lining of coding, then we wont have the same problem we did when Stark planted the virus." Lucas said.

"Good idea. Get the techs to help you install it into the mainframe" her father said.

Lucas nodded his head and gathered his things together and muttered a good bye to them. He patted Nicole on the shoulder as he walked by her. Nicole smiled and turned to her father.

"Daddy, I…I want to know why you never asked me if I wanted to stay here" Nicole said playing with her thumbs.

"I guess I assumed you wanted to be here." Bridger said.

"I do, but I just wanted to know why you never gave me the option to live at UCLA or to stay here." Nicole said.

"Well I guess the selfish part of me wanted to keep you close to me. When your mother passed away and you weren't around I missed you." Bridger said.

"I missed you too, but it was too hard to be at home with all the memories of mom around." Nicole said sadly.

"Well I had hoped to change that by having you here. We can make new memories to look back on" Bridger said.

"I'd like that" Nicole said with a smile.

"Captain to the bridge" O'Neill's voice came over the loudspeaker.

"I need to go Sweety, but let's make sure to have dinner together so we can talk more." Her father said as he got up.

He made his way to the door when Nicole spoke up. "Daddy, I love you" she said.

"Me too, Sweety. Me too" he said and walked out the door.

Nicole looked around her father's room and walked to the door and into the corridor. She made her way back to the science labs. She found Dr. Westphalen there and went up to her and asked her what she could help her with.

TBC…..

I wrote this cause I always wondered how Lucas was able to do all that stuff with no parental supervision. Then it hit me that the captain or the doctor would have to have guardianship over him in order to authorize some of the stuff. You can kind of see it if you watch all of the episodes closely.


End file.
